At first I think English has survived the assault of the Japanese in the far future….
Today, I will review a sequel of an anime I watched before this blog is started, titled Buzzer Beater 2007. From the title you would have realized that this is a Nodame Cantabile’s challenger. Just in case you did not know, Takehiko Inoue of Slamdunk does the story, so do not keep your hope up.
Story:-
Continuing from the previous series, the all-human Earth Team is now challenging alien’s invasion dominance in basketball at the Intergalactic Minor League. While doing that, the team will have to contend with all typical problems a sport team will face. Imagine a story about a high-school sport team that aims for the nationals, except that it happens far in the future where aliens and humans can interbreed.
Apart from the context, the story is not that different from your typical high-school sports anime, with the exception that the main protagonist is already awesome and need little training. Watching the first season is a must, or else you will be lost in an alien story. Character developments are carried on and continued well, but the ending is probably not very good, although YMMV.
My only gripe is that the basketball games actually takes a back-seat compared to the story itself, or else how then you can explain episode 10 where the hero wiped out a 15-point deficit all by himself instantaneously.
Character Design:-
Well, the hero is blue-haired but there are fair amount of black hair in this one. With this anime being set in a futuristic setting, I would not have complained if there none at all. Anyway, the character design is quite realistic and a positive point of this anime.
…just to find out it did not escaped unscathed.
Voice acting:-
The main protagonist is excellent, and so the other character named Lazuli. While the rest is not that bad, none is as good as the two above.
Music:-
The ED theme is decent, but not the OST. There is no OP theme here.
Animation:-
This 2007 anime, unlike the majority of its counterparts, has awful animation quality. This is really obvious in fast-paced scenes, and this anime has lots of them. At first I think Media Player Classic dropped some frames with the EVR custom presenter, but subsequent tests shows that this is not the case.
The directing is good, with the exception where the final league game in aforementioned episode 10 being watered down a lot.
Conclusion:-
7 out of 10. Nodame is still number one.
Basketball is serious business.
